Essays on Philosophical Subjects, by the Scottish economist Adam Smith, is a history of astronomy until Smith's own era, plus some thoughts on ancient physics and metaphysics.
This work was published posthumously (after death), in 1795, using material which Smith had intended to publish but had not prepared at the time of his death in 1790. This was done by his literary executors, two old friends from the Scottish academic world; physicist/chemist Joseph Black and pioneering geologist James Hutton. A brief account of their work appears in a section entitled 'Advertisement by the Editors'. [1]
The book consists of three distinct works:
The History of Astronomy is the largest of these and is thought to have been written in the 1750s, before Smith's major works. The overall understanding is excellent, though the Glasgow Edition of 1976 includes some detailed criticism of his use of sources. It also defends him for calling Newton a philosopher rather than a scientist; the word 'scientist' did not exist before 1839.
It also contains Smith's first mention of the invisible hand:
Adam Smith was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics" or "The Father of Capitalism", he wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and as an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of God's will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic and technological factors and the interactions between them. Among other economic theories, the work introduced Smith's idea of absolute advantage.
David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an empiricist.
James Hutton was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology," he played a key role in establishing geology as a modern science.
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century, Scotland had a network of parish schools in the Scottish Lowlands and five universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions which took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, as well as within Scotland's ancient universities.
Dugald Stewart was a Scottish philosopher and mathematician. Today regarded as one of the most important figures of the later Scottish Enlightenment, he was renowned as a populariser of the work of Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith. Trained in mathematics, medicine and philosophy, his lectures at the University of Edinburgh were widely disseminated by his many influential students. In 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In most contemporary documents he is referred to as Prof Dougal Stewart.
John Playfair FRSE, FRS was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience. Playfair's textbook Elements of Geometry made a brief expression of Euclid's parallel postulate known now as Playfair's axiom.
William Coxe was an English historian and priest who served as a travelling companion and tutor to nobility from 1771 to 1786. He wrote numerous historical works and travel chronicles. Ordained a deacon in 1771, he served as a rector and then archdeacon of Bemerton near Salisbury from 1786 until his death.
The invisible hand is a metaphor used by the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the inducement a merchant has to keep his capital at home, thereby increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power, both of which are in the public interest and neither of which he intended. Some later authors have broadened this to imply the unintended greater social impacts brought about by individuals acting in their own self-interests. Smith originally mentioned the term in his work Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, but it has actually become known from his main work The Wealth of Nations, where the phrase is mentioned only once, in connection with import restrictions.
William H. Spottiswoode HFRSE LLD was an English mathematician, physicist and partner in the printing and publishing firm Eyre & Spottiswoode. He was president of the Royal Society from 1878 to 1883.
Olinthus Gilbert Gregory was an English mathematician, author, and editor.
Charles Hutton FRS FRSE LLD was an English mathematician and surveyor. He was professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich from 1773 to 1807. He is remembered for his calculation of the density of the earth from Nevil Maskelyne's measurements collected during the Schiehallion experiment.
George Gleig FRSE FSA LLD was a Scottish minister who transferred to the Episcopalian faith and became Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
John Robison FRSE was a British physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
Thomas Stephens Davies FRS FRSE (1795–1851) was a British mathematician.
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1758) is a two-volume compilation of essays by David Hume. Part I includes the essays from Essays, Moral and Political, plus two essays from Four Dissertations. The content of this part largely covers political and aesthetic issues. Part II includes the essays from Political Discourses, most of which develop economic themes. The total two-part collection appeared within a larger collection of Hume's writings titled Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. This was a collaborative publication with the important Scottish bookseller Alexander Kincaid, with whom the bookseller Andrew Millar had a lucrative but sometimes difficult relationship.
Duncan Farquharson Gregory was a Scottish mathematician.
James Bryce LLD FRSE was an Irish mathematician, naturalist and geologist.
Conjectural history is a type of historiography isolated in the 1790s by Dugald Stewart, who termed it "theoretical or conjectural history," as prevalent in the historians and early social scientists of the Scottish Enlightenment. As Stewart saw it, such history makes space for speculation about causes of events, by postulating natural causes that could have had such an effect. His concept was to be identified closely with the French terminology histoire raisonnée, and the usage of "natural history" by David Hume in his work The Natural History of Religion. It was related to "philosophical history", a broader-based kind of historical theorising, but concentrated on the early history of man in a type of rational reconstruction that had little contact with evidence.
Scottish common sense realism, also known as the Scottish school of common sense, is a realist school of philosophy that originated in the ideas of Scottish philosophers Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, James Beattie, and Dugald Stewart during the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment. Reid emphasized man's innate ability to perceive common ideas and that this process is inherent in and interdependent with judgement. Common sense, therefore, is the foundation of philosophical inquiry. Though best remembered for its opposition to the pervasive philosophy of David Hume, Scottish common sense philosophy is influential and evident in the works of Thomas Jefferson and late 18th-century American politics.
Patrick Wilson FRSE LLD was a British astronomer, type-founder, mathematician and meteorologist. He was the Regius Professor of Practical Astronomy at Glasgow University from 1784 to 1799.
